Roy Welensky

Roland "Roy" Welensky (20 January 1907-5 December 1991) was Prime Minister of the Central African Federation from 2 November 1956 to 31 December 1963, succeeding Godfrey Huggins.

Biography
Roland Welensky was born in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia to a Lithuanian-Jewish refugee father and an Afrikaner mother. He was born in the slum quarter, and he worked as a railway official in Northern Rhodesia, became leader of the Railway Workers' Trade Union in 1933, and a member of the Northern Rhodesian Parliament in 1938. In 1941, he helped to form the Northern Rhodesian Labor Party. Claiming to be 50% Jewish, 50% Afrikaner, and 100% British, he was a major proponent of the creation of the Central African Federation which he hoped would strengthen the British presence in the area. To this end, he founded the United Federal Party and entered the Federation's first Parliament in 1953. Succeeding Godfrey Huggins as Prime Minister, he was unable to increase the white-ruled Federation's popularity among the black majority of the population, particularly in Nyasaland (Malawi) and Northern Rhodesia (Zambia). He supported white rule in Southern Rhodesia, but opposed Ian Smith's Unilateral Declaration of Independence which followed the breakup of the Federation. His attempt to build up an opposition to Smith through founding the New Rhodesia Party in 1964 failed, and so he retired to a farm near his home town of Salisbury (Harare). With the end of white rule in 1979, he returned to England, and he died in Blandford Forum, Dorset in 1991 at the age of 84.